Making a special post today instead of my usual journal entries. Since TH13 is on the horizon, I would like to make a list of things I wish to happen in TH13 and the justification. TH12 was not an entire failure, there were really good things and concepts introduced in TH12 such as siege machines and the giga tesla which changed the way players attack. However, there are still things that could be done better.

I’ll start out with my biggest disappointment in TH12, which is the lack of sizable strength increase. TH12 isn’t much stronger compared to TH11, which is why it is so easy for a TH11 to 2 star a maxed TH12 without much strategy. Even worse, because of the small strength increase, it allowed TH9/10 to 2 star maxed TH12s as well. Things like this should not happen, especially because most TH12s can only achieve 2 stars on TH12s. Statistics from CWL and other war leagues put the 3 star rate at 10-20% and the percentage would be far lower in casual wars.

The reason why this is a problem is because the only thing that matters is how many stars you can get. The actual percentage or overkill doesn’t matter, a TH10 getting 51% 2 star on a maxed TH12 is the exact same result as a TH12 geting 97% 2 star. At least 9 out of 10 wars are won based on stars alone, rendering percentage useless. This means that given the above scenario, a TH10 can be considered as strong offensively as a TH12 in terms of results. The joke here is that the TH12 probably spent an extra year or two progressing in the game, but will get the same results as a TH10.

This creates a huge problem because progression is almost entirely futile. One of the major reasons of playing is game is the progression aspect, this probably the only reason you’re attacking outside of wars, to gain loot to become stronger. The problem is that most upgrades don’t make you objectively much stronger compared to not doing such upgrades. Just look at my earlier journal entries and my current progress. The problem is that spending so much loot and time to upgrade things barely made me stronger and I only felt stronger after doing 2-3 TH worth of upgrades. Each TH should feel much stronger than the previous yet we see TH12s requiring high level heroes, maxed troops and a decent set of skill to even 3 star TH11s. Find some casual players and see their success rate against maxed TH11, TH12 vs TH11 really isn’t an unfair match.

This problem has been slightly alleviated by the introduction of CWL which is a similar concept as the builder base. By pitting bases against each other, we can magnify minute differences and give the advantage to high level bases. However for 90% of the game, you are just progressing for fun and unlocking new things along the way. You don’t feel stronger per se because your enemies grow in strength as well and the lower levels don’t feel much weaker.

This is why my biggest and first wish for TH13 is that it should be far stronger than TH12, so obscenely strong that a farming army could easily wreck a maxed TH12 with ease. Barch is probably too far a stretch because you still need a ton of spells, but I think miners being able to crush maxed TH12 with 2-3 heal spells is fair game. A TH13 should not require high level heroes nor a war army to 3 star a TH12 otherwise it kinda defeats the purpose. I’d say an average warden level of 20 along with maxed miners for TH13 should be able to crush a TH12 easily.

To this end, here are the new buildings I propose for TH13:

• 4th inferno
• 5th xbow
• 2nd tornado trap
• 2nd Eagle
• 2 extra cannons
• 1 new archer tower
• 5th air defense
• 5th mortar
• ?5th army camp
• 5th barracks
• 3rd dark barracks

I’m not sure if including the 5th army camp is a good idea, or whether I should give troops the 50% increase in strength they deserve. Adding the 5th army camp is good, but it means that this new building itself would trump every single lab upgrade, effectively giving a 25% increase in strength with not much cost. If SC continues with their dumb troop upgrades, then a 5th army camp will be necessary, otherwise just a good strength increase is fine.

I will also neglect to mention the new TH13 defense, new TH13 troops, new TH13 hero, or speculate any new spells/siege machines. These new stuff should be strong and unique without much need of mention. For any old defenses and troops which I do not mention here, I propose a 40-50% increase in both hp and dps instead of the dumb sub-10% we see.

The first new thing TH13 should get is a new level of spell factory which includes a new spell and 2 extra spell capacity. This brings the total spell capacity in TH13 to 13 (fitting eh?). The new spell should be flexible and can be used in multiple circumstances. This new spell should also require 3 spell capacity which prevents it from being donated to lower levels, so you must be a TH13 to be able to brew and use it. If possible, this new spell factory should also give a 10-20% discount (time/elixir) on all spells. This allows TH13s to attack using spells at the same cost as TH12. I propose a 20% reduction in elixir/DE costs and reduction in time to 5 minutes for standard spells (2.5 for freeze/poison etc and 7.5min for clone).

The next new thing is a new siege machine unlocked at lvl4 workshop. Again, it should be really strong and worth using. The new siege machine would require 2 space to use, so it cannot be donated to TH10-12. This prevents power creep at TH10/11 and allows fine tune balancing of this siege machine without consideration of TH10/11. The problem of the wall wrecker and stone slammer was that it had to be balanced around TH10. This was the main reason why it was nerfed on day one. TH13 clan castle would have 2 siege capacity to accommodate this new siege machine but they can only bring 1 siege into battle.

I hope the new army camp level will have 80 capacity per army camp. This would allow TH13 to bring 320 total capacity into battle. Increasing it to 300 sounds appealing just because of the round number, but the increasing cost of army camps should provide a good payback otherwise diminishing return is very painful. If SC decides to add a 5th army camp, then no new level of army camp would be required. Regardless, a fifth barracks and a 3rd dark barracks should be introduced to TH13 to alleviate army training times. We used to have 4 barracks for 200 army space but now even at 280 and 300-350 in the future, I think improved training times for TH13 is warranted.

Now for a few defensive changes. All these will only apply to TH13 levels. Xbows should get an extra tile of range when you upgrade it to lvl7. This applies to both ground (14>15) and air mode (11>12). Infernos lvl7 multi mode will get a 6th beam while infernos single mode will ramp up to max at 4.5 seconds instead of 5.25. Air defenses lvl11 will gain an extra tile of range as well to 11 tiles to counter queen walk. The eagle lvl4 will now shoot 4 times and each hit will deal minimum 10% health to its target, or 400 damage per hit, which ever is higher.

I do hope TH13 will be vastly superior compared to TH13 otherwise we would see joke pictures on the first day of TH13 again, “TH11 crushes TH12 easily”. If SC wants to make the grind worth it, they need to make the strength increase worth it. It is absurd that even as a TH12 now, I am still highly likely to be 2 starred by an average TH11.